Last week Universal Music Group's Doug Morris threatened to sic a cadre of lawyers on YouTube. Some people took him seriously. They shouldn't have. Morris was just negotiating.

Yesterday, AFX reported Universal Music Group spokesman Peter LoFrumento confirmed Monday that Universal ... is also negotiating with YouTube to strike a distribution deal."

The article also says Sony BMG is in negotiations with YouTube. I wonder which of them will get a sync in the next Diet Coke and Mentos video.

The Wall Street Journal writes today on the YouTube's transition to a copyright abider: "YouTube's agreement with Warner hinges on a digital system YouTube is developing to identify automatically copyrighted music or other audio, and related video its users upload. The system relies partly on what's known as 'fingerprinting' -- comparing audio uploaded to the site to unique attributes of copyrighted content it already knows."